


Punisher Files: Ceryx

by Domenika Marzione (domarzione)



Category: Daredevil (TV), Marvel TV Universe, The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Gen, POV Karen Page, Post-Series, Reporter Karen Page
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 09:18:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12908928
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/domarzione/pseuds/Domenika%20Marzione
Summary: Karen Page, after the elevator: witness and messenger.





	Punisher Files: Ceryx

When she's done at the hotel, she goes back to the _Bulletin_ office. She looks like shit and she smells of smoke and male body odor and she has the careful gait of someone who is very, very (punch) drunk and doesn't want to show it. She pretends not to notice the stares as she goes through the lobby and into the elevator. 

Ellison is waiting for her when she gets to her office. He jumps up once he sees her, gives her a once-over and a frown, and gestures with his head at her desk. He could chastise her for not going home to rest or at least shower, he could order her to. But he doesn't pretend to ignorance, doesn't ask why she's here. He knows, better than almost anyone else. 

The first draft is the truth, unvarnished and uncensored. It's not a news story, it's a profession of faith in Frank Castle and a confession of her own entanglement in his story. It's a bitter accusation against Senator Ori for his cowardice and the NYPD for their willingness to believe the worst when they know -- they _know_ \-- that the Punisher is their id unleashed. It's her anger and her fear, for herself, for Frank, for the city. 

It's cathartic and it will never be published. She saves it as a locked file Foggy.doc and goes to the ladies' room to wash her face in the sink. 

When she gets back to her office, she starts again. 

Draft Two is a confused mess because she's got two themes and they don't play well together. Draft Three separates them out; Three(A) is a defense of Frank Castle as a vigilante and not a terrorist and an alternate (and more truthful) explanation for his actions since his 'return from the grave,' separating him out from the tragedy of Lewis Wilson, which in turn becomes Three(B). She's not a fool, she knows which one is going to be published; she works on both until they are sparkling in prose and rapier-sharp in message. She submits both to Ellison. 

And then she puts her head down on her arms at her desk. 

She didn't think she fell asleep, but she startles at the knock on her door, so maybe she did. It's Ellison with a bag that smells like food. 

"Mac and cheese from the good diner on Eleventh," he says, unpacking the paper inside the plastic to reveal an aluminum container and handing to to her with a plastic spoon. "There's pie if you don't fight me about which one goes to print." 

The diner around the corner isn't really a diner, it's a hipster joint that pretends it's a diner and the mac and cheese is campanelle with four artisanal cheeses and truffle oil. The diner on Eleventh does elbows in Velveeta with a single spring of parsley for color. It's perfect. 

She eats like someone who has been blown up and kidnapped and shot (at) a man and then faked another kidnapping to help a wanted man escape the police after failing to stop said wanted man from encouraging a very damaged soul to commit suicide. And maybe realizing exactly how she feels about said wanted man.

She's ravenous. 

"We'll run the Lewis Wilson story on the front page," Ellison says when she comes up for air. He's got a reuben and he wipes russian dressing from his mouth as he talks. "I think you should do a first-person sidebar for the main news story. Doesn't have to be exciting, just give me a couple of inches to prove that you were there. You're all over the news and people are going to be buying the paper -- well, going to the website -- to see what you have to say about your morning. They'll stay to read the rest, but give the people what they want. We can use the ad views." 

The last part is sour; Ellison is not oblivious to the state of print journalism and the unlocked barn door of free online papers. But he's not going to stand on the shore and scream at the tide. He'll grump quietly from the boardwalk, though. 

"And the other one?" she asks between bites. 

"The other one is going to get squashed like a bug by Homeland, the NYPD, the DoD, or all of the above," Ellison answers, frowning as much for the response as that she tried to ask. He knows she knows. "You set fire to the VA in what's going to be the most-read story in the city tomorrow. Be happy with one scalp for now." 

She grunts, mouth full. "I'm not," she says after she swallows. 

"I'm shocked and surprised," he replies, deadpan. "But you are getting a little too close to Judith Miller territory and I don't want to have to replace the column inches in the Sunday edition if you get hauled off to the pokey." 

The pie is apple with a streusel top because the good diner on Eleventh bakes them in-house. 

Three days later, Ellison forwards her some of the not-very-implicit threats from government agencies should they challenge the framing of Frank Castle as a domestic terrorist. She reads them on her phone as she sits in the green room of yet another cable news talk show; she's been in high demand and she has obliged, albeit with a none-too-subtle armed chaperon who is ostensibly there for protection but is really there to make sure she doesn't go off-script. 

"What are you going to do to me if I start speaking the whole truth and nothing but?" she asks Agent Forbort as they leave the studio. "Shoot me?" 

Forbort shrugs. "Then you officially become a material witness and we toss you in a hole until Frank Castle is either dead or in the hole next to you. We don't need to charge you to do it."

She doesn't think Frank ends up in a hole, not after the last time. When Frank dies, it's an inevitability. It's also in a blaze of glory, saving hostages and a Homeland agent and bringing down Billy Russo in the process. It's the middle of the night and Karen is at home when she finds out, her phone blowing up until she turns it off so she can go lie on the couch and weep, unwilling to go back to bed. She's glad Frank's honor has been restored, grateful that he's at peace and with his family once more, but... but. She cries herself back to sleep. 

Ellison appears in her office doorway two days after the funeral -- a well-guarded, private affair -- to tell her to brush up her column on Frank Castle. They have permission to run it. She isn't sure whether she's more angry or more relieved. 

Three weeks later, there's an envelope a foot inside her apartment door when she gets home, slid underneath while she was away. She feels it over before opening it, mindful of letter bombs and poisonous powder and whatever other threats comes in plain white envelopes these days. 

There's nothing but a slip of paper with a single printed-out message, a set of coordinates and a time. Google maps tells her it's Little Bay Park, on the water next to Fort Totten in the most out-of-the-way corner of Queens you can be in without it actually being Long Island. She rents a Zipcar for tomorrow night, suspecting it has to do with her most recent set of columns on the gross negligence of the contractor for the city's high-speed ferries. Little Bay Park is a potential future site for ferry expansion. 

She cleans her pistol, packs her notebook and her recorder, and leaves a note on her kitchen counter explaining where she is going and why, just in case she runs into trouble. Just in case she doesn't come back. She spares half a thought to wonder when this became second nature. 

Whoever she was expecting, it wasn't what she got. 

Frank holds her while she cries and beats at his shoulder with her fist, letting him shift so that she stops bashing on a wound. 

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he murmurs roughly in her ear, pulling her closer. He rubs her back and she lets her head rest on his shoulder. 

She thinks this is the first time he hasn't smelled like gun oil and sweat in all the time she's known him. He smells like Irish Spring and, once she realizes that, her sobs turn to hiccups as she starts to laugh. 

"I'm glad you can see the funny in this, Page," he says indignantly, but he doesn't let her go. 

Eventually, she pulls away because her nose is running and she needs to dig tissues out of her purse because the sniffling is annoying her. 

They stand there for a long moment, hoping the other will break the silence. Finally, Frank holds out his hand. "C'mon, let's go eat."

He follows her back to her car and takes the keys because she's not up to driving. He doesn't go far, just to an Italian place on the other side of the Cross Island. The hostess can see she's upset but not at Frank, so she seats them in a quiet corner away from the rest of the diners. He doesn't start talking until the salads have been and gone and she's got a glass of barolo in her. It starts hesitantly, then builds up steam, pausing abruptly when the entrees are delivered, and then finishing up with an awkward, if heartfelt, apology for waiting so long to contact her. 

"I'm a little at loose ends," he admits. "You wanted me to think about 'after' and I never did. And now it's here."

He shrugs, an honest confession that he's not sure what to think about this development. 

She tries to keep from smiling, covering her face with her interlocked hands as her elbows rest on the table. "I'm kinda happy about the 'I told you so' I am not going to tell you."

He shakes his head. "No meatball for you, then," he says, steering the ones on his plate in the opposite direction from her. It's an evasion, but she's too elated to push him on it. 

Pete Castiglione is living and working in Canarsie right now, having just finished his first week on the demolition crew for a home remodeling contractor. He understands that this won't be his life long-term, but it's about all he's capable of right now and she assures him that that's just fine. 

"I'm kind of impressed," she tells him. "You've been dead three weeks and already have a lease and a paycheck." 

He gives her a look and she raises her hand as if swearing before a jury to tell the truth and nothing but. She _is_ impressed, if only because the Frank Castle she's known has never been someone who struck her as a 'fake it until you make it' kind of guy. The Punisher was pretty much a result of his inability to do just that. 

"Guy's gotta eat," he says, returning his focus to his plate. 

Guy's also gotta pay for dinner -- she has never been so close to getting That Look from him as when she tried to take out her wallet -- and he drives her back to the park so he can retrieve his car. Which is a light blue Prius and she nearly collapses in laughter once she sees it. 

"Lady on the next block was selling it out of her driveway for under a grand," he protests defensively.

"Oh, that's totally not going to cut it," she assures once she has her breath back.

"Yeah, well, you can compare notes with Curtis," he grouses. "I've already gotten the business from him."

She's met Curtis and has his number in her phone and he's going to be getting a very sharply-worded message from him in the very near future. And then a hug, because he's a truly good man in a world that over-uses the phrase when it doesn't apply. 

She drives back to Manhattan with Pete Castiglione's number in her phone, too. And a half-made offer to see each other soon. Once the fuss dies down a bit more -- Frank might be 'dead,' but Russo isn't and, between him and Rawlins, there is an awful lot of work still to do and Karen is fighting all comers who try to take it from her. 

When she gets back to her apartment after dropping off the car, she sees four missed messages and two voicemails. They're all from either sources or Ellison except for the last text, which is the first under the header of Pete Castiglione:

"Thank you." 

**Author's Note:**

> [A note for this has been posted to tumblr if you'd like to like or reblog there.](http://laporcupina.tumblr.com/post/168168700349/punisher-files-ceryx)


End file.
